Part 4 (1/2)

May is building her house. Of petal and blade, Of the roots of the oak, is the flooring made, With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover, Each small miracle over and over, And tender, traveling green things strayed.

Her windows, the morning and evening star, And her rustling doorways, ever ajar With the coming and going Of fair things blowing, The thresholds of the four winds are.

May is building her house. From the dust of things She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings; From October's tossed and trodden gold She is making the young year out of the old; Yea: out of winter's flying sleet She is making all the summer sweet, And the brown leaves spurned of November's feet She is changing back again to spring's.

Here is the Place where Loveliness keeps House. [Madison Cawein]

Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house, Between the river and the wooded hills, Within a valley where the Springtime spills Her firstling wind-flowers under blossoming boughs: Where Summer sits braiding her warm, white brows With bramble-roses; and where Autumn fills Her lap with asters; and old Winter frills With crimson haw and hip his snowy blouse.

Here you may meet with Beauty. Here she sits Gazing upon the moon, or all the day Tuning a wood-thrush flute, remote, unseen: Or when the storm is out, 't is she who flits From rock to rock, a form of flying spray, Shouting, beneath the leaves' tumultuous green.

Water Fantasy. [Fannie Stearns Davis]

O brown brook, O blithe brook, what will you say to me If I take off my heavy shoon and wade you childishly?

O take them off, and come to me.

You shall not fall. Step merrily!

But, cool brook, but, quick brook, and what if I should float White-bodied in your pleasant pool, your bubbles at my throat?

If you are but a mortal maid, Then I shall make you half afraid.

The water shall be dim and deep, And silver fish shall lunge and leap About you, coward mortal thing.

But if you come desiring To win once more your naiadhood, How you shall laugh and find me good -- My golden surfaces, my glooms, My secret grottoes' dripping rooms, My depths of warm wet emerald, My mosses floating fold on fold!

And where I take the rocky leap Like wild white water shall you sweep; Like wild white water shall you cry, Trembling and turning to the sky, While all the thousand-fringed trees Glimmer and glisten through the breeze.

I bid you come! Too long, too long, You have forgot my undersong.

And this perchance you never knew: E'en I, the brook, have need of you.

My naiads faded long ago, -- My little nymphs, that to and fro Within my waters sunnily Made small white flames of tinkling glee.

I have been lonesome, lonesome; yea, E'en I, the brook, until this day.

Cast off your shoon; ah, come to me, And I will love you lingeringly!

O wild brook, O wise brook, I cannot come, alas!

I am but mortal as the leaves that flicker, float, and pa.s.s.

My body is not used to you; my breath is fluttering sore; You clasp me round too icily. Ah, let me go once more!

Would G.o.d I were a naiad-thing whereon Pan's music blew; But woe is me! you pagan brook, I cannot stay with you!

Bacchus. [Frank Dempster Sherman]